What We Did This Weekend:
All Aboard!
Our weekend seemed a lot more exciting before I actually sat down to post. Now I'm not really sure it will be as exciting for you as it was for us. Then again, that's probably how it is every week, and yet, you always come back for more...
Friday night was really big.Probably bigger for me than for Brookie. But, since I'm the one who writes the blog, you all get the story from my perspective. We spent the evening in the Town Center Plaza area of Overland Park, KS. On our way we had to stop for some craft supplies at Hobby Lobby. We had dinner at Panera Bread (second week in a row, actually. Something about it being summer just screams "French Onion Soup"). After dinner we walked around and did a little shopping. There was really only one store I wanted to visit, and it was the real reason we were over in Johnson County. It closes at 9:00pm, and the closer it got the more nervous I became. I was trying to stay cool, but I'm fairly certain that Brookie saw right through me. Finally, at about 8:30pm, Brookie must have tired of toying with my mind, and we were off to the Apple Store!
We received our insurance money last week, so we're finally starting to replace our stuff. We'd been "Mac-less" for over a month, so being in the Apple Store knowing we were going to buy was rejuvenating. Thanks to my employment with Western Governors University and Apple's sweet back to school deal, we were able to take advantage of three promotions when we bought our new iMac. First, we saved $50 thanks to the educational discount. Second, there was a $100 rebate for qualifying printers, so we picked out a $100 printer that's as good as free. And third, Apple's Buy a Mac, Get an iPod promotion allowed Brookie to get an iPod Touch of her own, and after the rebate, it's free too. What's better than free stuff from the Apple Store? Actually, what's better than the Apple Store? Seriously. We were so impressed. That company really knows what it's doing. Everything is so smooth. We asked to be checked out. I told an employee exactly what we wanted. He carted it all out to the showroom for us. Scanned it. Printed the receipts from his scanner. Took us over to a computer and to the rebate site where he had us enter our information and receipt number, and all now we need to do is wait for the check in the mail. Sweet!
But now that we have stuff that's valuable again, there was a little twinge of paranoia that crept back into our psyches. But instead of worrying, we just hopped aboard the Paranoia Express. All Aboard! We're taking a few measures to guard against this happening again:
1) Locked Down: After we left the Apple Store our last stop on the way home was Home Depot, where we picked up a combination bike lock. We secured our new iMac to our desk so that no one can simply grab it and go. Now all we need to do is remember the combination (by the way... would anyone be interested in Apple-sitting while we're away on our summer trip to Utah?)
2) Undercover: I discovered this software and purchasing and installing it was the first thing we did on our new computer. It's theft recovery software, yes. But it's got so much Apple coolness that we would have paid much more than their asking price. You can check the site for details, or just ask me about it the next time you run into me. It's pretty CIA-mazing if you ask me.
3) BackBlaze: Our insurance company can replace our computers, cameras, camcorders, jewelry, and everything else. But, what can't be replaced are all of the pictures, graphic design files, documents, and everything else from our digital lives that lived in our stolen computer. To prevent the loss of these irreplaceable items, we've signed up for BackBlaze, an automatic online data backup for $5 a month. I almost went with Carbonite, but discovered BackBlaze and saw that it was able to backup external hard drives as well as the main drive on the computer. We always thought that our computer would be safe because of our external drive. If it ever crashed we could easily restore our data. But we didn't think that a thief would be thoughtless enough to take it along with everything else that blinked. Now hopefully we won't have that issue again.
You know what they say about hindsight. Maybe you can rethink your own setup and improve your foresight based on what is in our rearview mirror. I wish I would have thought about this kind of stuff two or three months ago. Oh well.
Saturday was long and full of work and getting stuff ready for the upcoming Girls Camp. Sunday we had dinner with some good friends from Utah that are in town for a while and played with their one-year-old twin boys for most of the evening. My assignment was a dessert, which should have been easy enough, except for that I didn't notice that the recipe called for an envelope of unflavored gelatin, not a package of raspberry Jell-O. I was able to salvage it, but it wasn't as great as it should have been. Maybe I just should have made that chocolate peanut butter cake again. Hindsight. 20/20.
And that's what we did this weekend.
Go to the board!
Friday night was really big.
We received our insurance money last week, so we're finally starting to replace our stuff. We'd been "Mac-less" for over a month, so being in the Apple Store knowing we were going to buy was rejuvenating. Thanks to my employment with Western Governors University and Apple's sweet back to school deal, we were able to take advantage of three promotions when we bought our new iMac. First, we saved $50 thanks to the educational discount. Second, there was a $100 rebate for qualifying printers, so we picked out a $100 printer that's as good as free. And third, Apple's Buy a Mac, Get an iPod promotion allowed Brookie to get an iPod Touch of her own, and after the rebate, it's free too. What's better than free stuff from the Apple Store? Actually, what's better than the Apple Store? Seriously. We were so impressed. That company really knows what it's doing. Everything is so smooth. We asked to be checked out. I told an employee exactly what we wanted. He carted it all out to the showroom for us. Scanned it. Printed the receipts from his scanner. Took us over to a computer and to the rebate site where he had us enter our information and receipt number, and all now we need to do is wait for the check in the mail. Sweet!
But now that we have stuff that's valuable again, there was a little twinge of paranoia that crept back into our psyches. But instead of worrying, we just hopped aboard the Paranoia Express. All Aboard! We're taking a few measures to guard against this happening again:
1) Locked Down: After we left the Apple Store our last stop on the way home was Home Depot, where we picked up a combination bike lock. We secured our new iMac to our desk so that no one can simply grab it and go. Now all we need to do is remember the combination (by the way... would anyone be interested in Apple-sitting while we're away on our summer trip to Utah?)
2) Undercover: I discovered this software and purchasing and installing it was the first thing we did on our new computer. It's theft recovery software, yes. But it's got so much Apple coolness that we would have paid much more than their asking price. You can check the site for details, or just ask me about it the next time you run into me. It's pretty CIA-mazing if you ask me.
3) BackBlaze: Our insurance company can replace our computers, cameras, camcorders, jewelry, and everything else. But, what can't be replaced are all of the pictures, graphic design files, documents, and everything else from our digital lives that lived in our stolen computer. To prevent the loss of these irreplaceable items, we've signed up for BackBlaze, an automatic online data backup for $5 a month. I almost went with Carbonite, but discovered BackBlaze and saw that it was able to backup external hard drives as well as the main drive on the computer. We always thought that our computer would be safe because of our external drive. If it ever crashed we could easily restore our data. But we didn't think that a thief would be thoughtless enough to take it along with everything else that blinked. Now hopefully we won't have that issue again.
You know what they say about hindsight. Maybe you can rethink your own setup and improve your foresight based on what is in our rearview mirror. I wish I would have thought about this kind of stuff two or three months ago. Oh well.
Saturday was long and full of work and getting stuff ready for the upcoming Girls Camp. Sunday we had dinner with some good friends from Utah that are in town for a while and played with their one-year-old twin boys for most of the evening. My assignment was a dessert, which should have been easy enough, except for that I didn't notice that the recipe called for an envelope of unflavored gelatin, not a package of raspberry Jell-O. I was able to salvage it, but it wasn't as great as it should have been. Maybe I just should have made that chocolate peanut butter cake again. Hindsight. 20/20.
And that's what we did this weekend.
Go to the board!
I'm going to talk to Jon about signing us up for BackBlaze; $5/month isn't much for a peace of mind when it comes to our digi lives.
ReplyDeleteP.S. You guys have such interesting dinners. I wish I loved to cook.
ReplyDeleteEvery time I'm going to type Todd, I always type Tood first.
ReplyDelete